Cloud Foundry Experimental Apt Buildpack

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A Cloud Foundry buildpack for apps requiring custom apt packages.

Buildpack User Documentation

The apt buildpack can be used to install deb packages prior to use in another buildpack. To configure which packages to install, provide apt.yml in your application and include a list of packages to install, eg:

---
packages:
- ascii
- libxml
- https://example.com/exciting.deb

If you would like to use custom apt repositories, you can add keys and repos to the apt.yml, eg:

---
truncatesources: true
cleancache: true
keys:
- https://example.com/public.key
repos:
- deb http://apt.example.com stable main
packages:
- ascii
- libxml

truncatesources as the name suggests truncates the sources.list file and puts just the entries specified in repos section. This maybe needed in environment where ubuntu public repos are blocked.

cleancache calls apt-get clean and apt-get autoclean. Useful to purge any cached content.

Using a PPA

It's possible to use a PPA, but you need to indicate the GPG key for the PPA and the full repo line, not just the PPA name.

To locate this information, navigate to the PPA on Launchpad. Expand where it says "Technical Details about this PPA". See this Stack Overflow post if you're having trouble finding it.

Under that, select the correct version of Ubuntu from the drop down. Then you can copy and paste the sources.list entries presented there under the repos block in apt.yml. Beneath the sources.list entry, you'll a label named "Signing Key" and beneath that a link. Click on the link. On the page that loads, you should see one GPG key entry. In the bits/keyID column, you'll see a link. Right click on that and copy the link. Paste that in under the keys block in your apt.yml.

You should now be able to install packages from that PPA.

Building the Buildpack

To build this buildpack, run the following commands from the buildpack's directory:

1. Source the .envrc file in the buildpack directory.

   source .envrc

   To simplify the process in the future, install direnv which will automatically source .envrc when you change directories.

2. Install buildpack-packager

   go install github.com/cloudfoundry/libbuildpack/packager/buildpack-packager

3. Build the buildpack

   buildpack-packager build

4. Use in Cloud Foundry

   Upload the buildpack to your Cloud Foundry and optionally specify it by name

   cf create-buildpack [BUILDPACK_NAME] [BUILDPACK_ZIP_FILE_PATH] 1
   cf push my_app [-b BUILDPACK_NAME]

Testing

Buildpacks use the Cutlass framework for running integration tests against Cloud Foundry. Before running the integration tests, you need to login to your Cloud Foundry using the cf cli:

cf login -a https://api.your-cf.com -u name@example.com -p pa55woRD

Note that your user requires permissions to run cf create-buildpack and cf update-buildpack. To run the integration tests, run the following command from the buildpack's directory:

1. Source the .envrc file in the buildpack directory.

   source .envrc

   To simplify the process in the future, install direnv which will automatically source .envrc when you change directories.

2. Run unit tests

   ./scripts/unit.sh

3. Run integration tests

   ./scripts/integration.sh

Contributing

Find our guidelines here.

Help and Support

Join the #buildpacks channel in our Slack community.

Reporting Issues

Open an issue on this project

Active Development

The project backlog is on Pivotal Tracker.

Disclaimer

This buildpack is experimental and not yet intended for production use.